Improving CX3 sound

TonyP66 · Post by **TonyP66** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 4:43 pm

Thank you for your reply Craig. I will try some more since it is working for you. Super!

jeremykeys · Post by **jeremykeys** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 9:26 pm

Last night I gigged with my blues band' "the 10 Cent Millionaires". Since most of what i play is Hammond emulation I found that by using my own organ patch and the control panel to tweak stuff on the fly, I get sound that is as close to a real B3 as I can. I'm running mono so the leslie sim is what it is. Pretty much everyone in the audience and the band raved about the orgon sound and how "real" it sounded. Now I know it's not but it certainly is good. I do play with the draw-bars a lot and have the leslie speed set with a footswitch so I can do swells and speed changes at the same time. I played with the cont panel EQ and percussion settings a lot as well. I think that even though I don't have the woodiness of a real Hammond by using the controls in the same way you can cover all the basses so to speak. I do have to do some work with the percussion as i find it doesn't yet have thehollow "thonk" tone that I get on my real Hammond but I will eventually.

ccmacdon · Post by **ccmacdon** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:06 pm

Jeremy,

Half the challenge in obtaining great hammond sound is the quality of the tone and the other half is using traditional hammond technique.

The CX3 engine is certainly good enough to fool a lot of people, but there is room for improvement. The trick to the CX3 engine is building your own program that you think sounds close to your favourite Hammond and then when you perform, employ traditional hammond techniques such as glisses, drawbar manipulation, expression pedal, and leslie tremelo on/off.

Sounds like you accomplished that.. well done.

jeremykeys · Post by **jeremykeys** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 1:57 pm

ccmacdon, Thanks! I've been doing Hammond fakes for a long time. Many years ago I used to own a Crumar Organizer; also I think called a T-1. It was a single manual organ with drawbars, percussion and 4 presets. I've pretty much always used a volume pedal. I've had a Traynor Revs model II keyboard amp for years as well. It had a leslie effect in it controlled by a foot-switch. You could adjust the depth and acceleration rate of the effect. Having an M-3 Hammond helps as well although I've only really run it through my Keyboard amp and not a real Leslie. You are absolutely right in that it's not just the sound but the manipulation of the controls that help to recreate the sound and experience.

JPROBERTLA · Post by **JPROBERTLA** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:03 am

jeremykeys wrote:

Many years ago I used to own a Crumar Organizer; also I think called a T-1. It was a single manual organ with drawbars, percussion and 4 presets.

I had T-1, I believe in 1978 or 79. Considering how long ago that was, it sounded relatively good. I ran it thru a "Little David" Leslie simulator, which was extremely good. I wish I still had the Little David - it looked like a miniature Leslie speaker cabinet about 1 foot tall.

jeremykeys · Post by **jeremykeys** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:17 am

JPROBERTLA wrote:jeremykeys wrote:

Many years ago I used to own a Crumar Organizer; also I think called a T-1. It was a single manual organ with drawbars, percussion and 4 presets.
I had T-1, I believe in 1978 or 79. Considering how long ago that was, it sounded relatively good. I ran it thru a "Little David" Leslie simulator, which was extremely good. I wish I still had the Little David - it looked like a miniature Leslie speaker cabinet about 1 foot tall.

I've never even heard of a Little David. Who was it made by? Sounds like something that would be a good idea today.

popmann · Post by **popmann** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 5:39 am

If you own a Nord Electro or another recent clone
you would not replace it with kronos..

Sure I would. Nord's organs are pretty foul, IMO. Every time I see someone at a small club with one of those...it's just cheesy.

I think the cx3 is about as good as I've played in hardware (though I've not played the latest Hammond Suzuki). The Kronos presets ARE fairly rank, though-give you that. Distortion is "eh"...at best...but, as someone who rarely fuzzes my C3/122, that doesn't bother me.

Biggest disappointment for me has been it not responding to CC for drawbar control...which means I can't use my nice Voce MidiDrawbar unit. Going to order a midi solutions box at some point and program the conversion. Just hate to spend $150 for a box to fix something that could easily be fixed in software.

All in all...I have always preferred the now discontinued Native Instruments B4 to any other emu I've played. But, the cx3 is a close second. Tied with the software VB3, maybe.

Obviously, YMMV.

ccmacdon · Post by **ccmacdon** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 1:38 pm

Popman,

I have no idea why you would suggest that NORD organs sound cheesy.. far from it, I've been using a NORD C2 for months now and the CX3 emulation in the Kronos doesn't come close, and the new models the electro 4D and the C2D are absolutely outstanding with improved leslie sim, keyclick, persussion and overdrive.

The digital CX3/BX3 was the best clone available when it was released, but since then there have been some MAJOR improvements in clones across the board. However, pair a CX3 with a Ventilator leslie pedal and you can still get a great Hammond/leslie sound.

Unfortunately B4 (version I and II) which sold for around $199 was completely blown away by GSI's VB3 which sold for about a third of the price. Some users prefer B4's raw tone and use it through VB3's leslie sim, however the general consensus is the VB3 was a far superior instrument (and the fact that B4 was discontinued is probably evidence of that).

I've used and tried pretty much every Hammond clone or VST with the exception of a couple of the newer products (Nord C2D, Mojo, KeyB).

I do agree with you that seeing a NORD organ at a small club just doesn't have the impact of seeing a real B3, and the red colour takes some getting used to.. The thing that I have come to grips with is that I can't deal with the hassle of moving my real Hammond/Leslies anymore, and neither is there room for it in some small clubs. So, my NORD C2 is a perfect solution, and I have to say that I have NEVER performed without receiving a complement on how great my Nord C2 sounds!!

Now if I can just get my Kronos CX3 engine to sound as good as my NORD C2 I'll be a very happy guy!

NuSkoolTone · Post by **NuSkoolTone** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:18 pm

At the minimum, I have to echo the distortion on the CX3 is DREADFUL. Though, then you have the MDS engine where the distortion sounds pretty nice! Would love to see some of those algorithms ported to the IFX section at least. That's it in a nutshell, IMO. Basic Hammond tones, the CX3 does a good job (I mean not anything like Crumar Mojo stuff, but good enough all considered). It's just SCREAMING Hammond organs the CX3 fails MISERABLY IMO.

Lando · Post by **Lando** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:29 pm

Just saw this video, an example of what the Nord organ can do. It's very very far from beeing cheesy sounding. I don't demand that a Kronos should sound like this, but as said, the closer we can come the better

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_23IMGc ... ture=share

Zeroesque · Post by **Zeroesque** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 4:07 pm

ccmacdon wrote:Unfortunately B4 (version I and II) which sold for around $199 was completely blown away by GSI's VB3 which sold for about a third of the price. Some users prefer B4's raw tone and use it through VB3's leslie sim, however the general consensus is the VB3 was a far superior instrument (and the fact that B4 was discontinued is probably evidence of that).

I think people got good mileage out of B4's presets, however. They were nearly all usable, if not simple (which let the raw tone shine as well as it could).

JPROBERTLA · Post by **JPROBERTLA** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 4:09 pm

jeremyleys wrote:

I've never even heard of a Little David. Who was it made by? Sounds like something that would be a good idea today.

I believe it was made by Multivox. Ot looked exactly like a miniature Leslie cabinet, but about 1 foot tall. For its time, it sounded better than anything else out. I kept it for years, and gave it away (sorry I did) when I got my OI/Wfd in 1992.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 12:13 am

jeremykeys wrote:Many years ago I used to own a Crumar Organizer; also I think called a T-1. It was a single manual organ with drawbars

I so wanted to like that when it came out... It had just the features I wanted, but the sounds, yecch. I'm glad I waited. Shortly after that, the original Korg CX3 came out, and I bought it instantly. It was exactly what I'd hoped the Crumar would have been.

Funny, though, now the Crumar name is being used to market a clone called the Mojo, and the roles are reversed, now they're ahead of Korg in Hammond emulation!

NuSkoolTone · Post by **NuSkoolTone** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 3:50 am

Looking at the new libraries, I'm curious about Karo's "Vintage Organs". The demos sound pretty good! Are they using samples, or are these just really good CX3 Programs? If it's the latter, I'd consider buying it. Anyone know?

ccmacdon · Post by **ccmacdon** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 11:49 am

I was going to ask the same question, however personally I didn't like the demos... especially the one that seems to be attempting to sound like "A Whiter Shade of Pale".. to be fair that was the first demo and it was so bad that it kind of turned me off completely.. If this is an example of the quality of the rest of the sounds, I have no interest.. I have already created a vintage B3 using the CX3 engine that sounds MUCH better than these do..

Has anyone got the Karo Vintage organs, and how do they sound?